PV soccer coach, athletic association settle dispute

A settlement has been reached in an ugly breach-of-contract lawsuit that pitted a suspended Ponte Vedra Beach youth soccer coach against the athletic association his former club played under.

Coach Trey Clark’s attorney, Gregg Gerlach, said Monday that a settlement occurred with the Ponte Vedra Palm Valley Athletic Association and its president, John Lazzara, after about 13 hours of talks with a mediator Friday.

The sides agreed to mediation in an effort to settle the suit, which had been filed in Duval County Circuit Court. Financial details of the suit are being kept confidential.

Clark gave up his job under the agreement, Lazzara said. Clark said the agreement earned him more than the $45,000 he was owed and that he plans to start his own soccer club in Ponte Vedra Beach.

“I think it’s good that it ended for the kids’ sake,” Clark said. “It’s a shame it got to where it was.”

Lazzara said he’d hoped to be able to publicly counter Clark’s claims against him, including that he was on a vendetta against the former coach, but felt settling the suit was done in the best interests of the association and its members. He said a formerly agreed upon split between the soccer club and the athletic association will likely be averted as a result.

“I’m thrilled for the PVAA and the soccer club and the community,” Lazzara said. “We can get back to what we’re supposed to be doing, which is focus on sports for kids and the operation of our programs.”

Clark, 47, filed the suit in September accusing the association and Lazzara of breaching a contract that paid Clark as director of coaching $54,000 annually plus cost-of-living increases, bonuses and incentives. Association officials said Clark would have earned $137,000 by year’s end.

Association board members said they ordered the soccer club to stop paying Clark when an audit revealed his earnings, and they worried about losing their nonprofit tax exempt status. Some board members apparently didn’t know about details of the contract, which they said was done between Clark and the soccer club without association input.

Clark claimed the breach had to do in part with a vendetta he said Lazzara had against him for dismissing a soccer coach, who was a friend of Lazzara, after the coach became belligerent toward Clark and others. Lazzara denied those allegations.